Prolegomena to the History of Israel Part 13

I The Kohen ha-rosh first occurs in 2Samuel xv. 27, but here HR)# (so read, instead of HRW)H) comes from the interpolator of ver. 24.

So again 2Kings xii. 11, HKHN HGDWL, but 2Kings xii. is from the same hand as 2Kings xvi. 10 seq. Elsewhere we have simply "the priest,"

compare besides 2Kings xix. 2; Jeremiah xix. 1; 2Kings xxiii. 4; xxv. 18; Jeremiah xx. 1; xxix. 25, 26; In 1Samuel ii. 36 SPXNY "incorporate me" shows that KHNH must mean "priestly guild" or "order." In connection with the name LWY it is noteworthy that SPX is parallel with LWH in Isaiah xiv. 1.

superior but unique, like that of the Pope in relation to the episcopate; his sons act under his oversight (Numbers iii. 4); he alone is the one fully qualified priest, the embodiment of all that is holy in Israel He alone bears the Urim and Thummim and the Ephod; the Priestly Code indeed no longer knows what those articles are for, and it confounds the ephod of gold with the ephod of linen, the plated image with the priestly robe; but the dim recollections of these serve to enhance the magical charm of Aaron's majestic adornment. He alone may enter into the holy of holies and there offer incense; the way at other times inaccessible (Nehemiah vi. 10, 11) is open to him on the great day of atonement. Only in him, at a single point and in a single moment, has Israel immediate contact with Jehovah. The apex of the pyramid touches heaven.

The high priest stands forth as absolutely sovereign in his own domain. Down to the exile, as we have seen, the sanctuary was the property of the king, and the priest was his servant; even in Ezekiel who on the whole is labouring towards emanc.i.p.ation, the prince has nevertheless a very great importance in the temple still; to him the dues of the people are paid, and the sacrificial expenses are in return defrayed by him. In the Priestly Code, on the other hand, the dues are paid direct into the sanctuary, the worship is perfectly autonomous, and has its own head, holding not from man but from the grace of G.o.d. Nor is it merely the autonomy of religion that is represented by the high priest; he exhibits also its supremacy over Israel. He does not carry sceptre and sword; nowhere, as Vatke (p. 539) well remarks, is any attempt made to claim for him secular power. But just in virtue of his spiritual dignity, as the head of the priesthood, he is head of the theocracy, and so much so that there is no room for any other alongside of him; a theocratic king beside him cannot be thought of (Numbers xxvii. 21). He alone is the responsible representative of the collective nation, the names of the twelve tribes are written on his breast and shoulders; his transgression involves the whole people in guilt, and is atoned for as that of the whole people, while the princes, when their sin-offerings are compared with his, appear as mere private persons (Leviticus iv. 3, 13, 22, ix. 7, xvi. 6). His death makes an epoch; it is when the high priest--not the king--dies that the fugitive slayer obtains his amnesty (Numbers x.x.xv. 28). At his invest.i.ture he receives the chrism like a king, and is called accordingly the anointed priest; he is adorned with the diadem and tiara (Ezekiel xxi. 31, A.V. 26) like a king, and like a king too he wears the purple, that most unpriestly of all raiment, of which he therefore must divest himself when he goes into the holy of holies (Lev. xvi. 4).

What now can be the meaning of this fact,--that he who is at the head of the worship, in this quality alone, and without any political attributes besides, or any share in the government, is at the same time at the head of the nation? What but that civil power has been withdrawn from the nation and is in the hands of foreigners; that Israel has now merely a spiritual and ecclesiastical existence?

In the eyes of the Priestly Code Israel in point of fact is not a people, but a church; worldly affairs are far removed from it and are never touched by its laws; its life is spent in religious services. Here we are face to face with the church of the second temple, the Jewish hierocracy, in a form possible only under foreign domination. It is customary indeed to designate in the Law by the ideal, or in other words blind, name of theocracy that which in historical reality is usually called hierarchy; but to imagine that with the two names one has gained a real distinction is merely to deceive oneself. But, this self-deception accomplished, it is easy further to carry back the hierocratic churchly const.i.tution to the time of Moses, because it excludes the kingship, and then either to a.s.sert that it was kept secret throughout the entire period of the judges and the monarchy, or to use the fiction as a lever by which to dislocate the whole of the traditional history.

To any one who knows anything about history it is not necessary to prove that the so-called Mosaic theocracy, which nowhere suits the circ.u.mstances of the earlier periods, and of which the prophets, even in their most ideal delineations of the Israelite state as it ought to be, have not the faintest shadow of an idea, is, so to speak, a perfect fit for post-exilian Judaism, and had its actuality only there. Foreign rulers had then relieved the Jews of all concern about secular affairs; they had it in their power, and were indeed compelled to give themselves wholly up to sacred things, in which they were left completely unhampered.

Thus the temple became the sole centre of life, and the prince of the temple the head of the spiritual commonwealth, to which also the control of political affairs, so far as these were still left to the nation, naturally fell there being no other head! /1/

1. Very interesting and instructive is Ewald's proof of the way in which Zech. vi. 9-15 has been tampered with, so as to eliminate Zerubbabel and leave the high priest alone. Just so in dealing with Caliphs and Sultans, the Patriarchs were and are the natural heads of the Greek and Oriental Christians even in secular matters.

The Chronicler gave a corresponding number of high priests to the twice twelve generations of forty years each which were usually a.s.sumed to have elapsed between the exodus and the building of Solomon's temple, and again between that and the close of the captivity; the official terms of office of these high priests, of whom history knows nothing, have taken the place of the reigns of judges and kings, according to which reckoning was previously made (1Chronicles v. 29, seq.). One sees clearly from Sirach l., and from more than one statement of Josephus (e.g., Ant., xviii.

4, 3, xx. 1, 11), how in the decorations of Aaron (where, however, the Urim and Thummim were wanting; Nehemiah vii. 65) people reverenced a transcendent majesty which had been left to the people of G.o.d as in some sense a compensation for the earthly dignity which had been lost. Under the rule of the Greeks the high priest became ethnarch and president of the synedrium; only through the pontificate was it possible for the Hasmonaeans to attain to power, but when they conjoined it with full-blown secular sovereignty, they created a dilemma to the consequences of which they succ.u.mbed.

CHAPTER V. THE ENDOWMENT OF THE CLERGY.

The power and independence of the clergy run parallel with its material endowment, which accordingly pa.s.ses through the same course of development. Its successive steps are reflected even in the language that is employed, in the gradual loss of point sustained by the phrase "to fill the hand," at all times used to denote ordination. Originally it cannot have had any other meaning than that of filling the hand with money or its equivalent; we have seen that at one time the priest was appointed by the owner of a sanctuary for a salary, and that, without being thus dependent upon a particular employer, he could not then live on the income derived from those who might employ him sacrificially. But when the Levitical hereditary priesthood arose in the later kingdom of Judah the hands of the priests were no longer filled by another who had the right to appoint and to dismiss, but they themselves at G.o.d's command "filled their own hand," or rather they had done so in the days of Moses once for all, as is said in Exodus x.x.xii. 26-29, an insertion corresponding with the position of Deuteronomy. It is obvious that such a statement, when carefully looked at, is absurd, but is to be explained by the desire to protest against outside interference. Even here the etymological sense is still sufficiently felt to create an involuntary jar and leads to a change of the construction; but finally all sense of it is lost, and the expression becomes quite colourless: "to fill the hand "

means simply "to consecrate." In Ezekiel not only the priest but also the altar has its "hand filled" (xliii. 26); in the Priestly Code the abstract _milluim_ ["consecrations"] is chiefly used, with subject and object left out, as the name of a mere inaugural ceremony which lasts for several days (Leviticus viii. 33; Exodus xxix. 34), essentially consists in the bringing of an offering on the part of the person to be consecrated, and has no longer even the remotest connection with actual filling of the hand (2Chronicles xiii. 7; comp. xxix. 31). The verb, therefore, now means simply the performance of this ceremony, and the subject is quite indifferent (Leviticus xvi. 32, xxi. 10; Numbers iii. 3); the installation does not depend upon the person who performs the rite, but upon the rite itself, upon the unction, invest.i.ture, and other formalities (Exodus xxix. 29).

This variation in the _usus Ioquendi_ is the echo of real changes in the outuard condition of the clergy, which we must now proceed to consider more in detail.

V.I.

V.I.1. Of the offerings, it was the custom in the earlier time to dedicate a portion to the deity but to use the greater part in sacred feasts, at which a priest, if present, was of course allowed also in one way or another to partic.i.p.ate. But he does not appear to have had a legal claim to any definite dues of flesh.

"Eli's sons were worthless persons, and cared not about Jehovah, or about the priests' right and duty with the people.

When any man offered a sacrifice the servant of the priest came (that is all we have here to represent the 22,000 Levites) while the flesh was in seething, with a three-p.r.o.nged flesh-hook in his hand, and stuck it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot; and all that the flesh-hook brought up the priest took. So they did in Shiloh unto all the Israelites that came thither. Even before the fat was burnt, the servant of the priest came and said to the man that sacrificed: "Give flesh to roast for the priest; he will not take sodden flesh of thee, but raw. And if the other said to him: Let the fat first be burnt, and then take according to thy soul's desire; then he would answer: Nay, but thou shalt give it now; and if not, I will take it by force" (1Samuel ii. 12-16).

The tribute of raw portions of flesh before the burning of the fat is here treated as a shameless demand which is fitted to bring Jehovah's offering into contempt (ver. 17), and which has the ruin of the sons of Eli as its merited reward. More tolerable is it, though even that is an abuse, when the priests cause boiled flesh to be brought them from the pot, though not seeking out the best for themselves, but leaving the selection to chance; they ought to wait and see what is given to them, or be contented with an invitation to the banquet. On the other hand we have it in Deuteronomy as "the priest's due from the people" (xviii. 3 = 1Samuel ii. 12) that he receives the shoulder and the two cheeks and the maw of the slaughtered animal; and yet this is a modest claim compared with what the sons of Aaron have in the Priestly Code (Leviticus vii. 34),--the right leg and the breast.

The course of the development is plain; the Priestly Code became law for Judaism. In sacrifice, ITS demands were those which were regarded; but in order to fulfil all righteousness the precept of Deuteronomy was also maintained, this being applied--against the obvious meaning and certainly only as a result of later scrupulosity of the scribes--not to sacrifices but to ordinary secular slaughterings, from which also accordingly the priests received a portion, the cheeks (according to Jerome on Malachi ii. 3), including the tongue, the precept being thus harmonistically doubled. /1/ At an earlier

1. Philo, De praem. sacerd., sec. 3. Josephus, Ant., iii. 9. 2; iv. 4, 4.

date the priests at Jerusalem received money from those who employed them (Deuteronomy xviii. 8), but for this had the obligation of maintaining the temple; from this one can discern that the money was properly speaking paid to the sanctuary, and was only conditionally delivered to its servitors. When they failed to observe the condition, King Jehoash took the money also from them (2Kings xii. 7 seq.).

The meal-offerings are in the Priestly Code a subordinate matter, and the share that falls to the priests is here trifling compared with what they receive of the other sacrifices. The meal, of which only a handful is sprinkled upon the altar, the baked bread, and the minha altogether are theirs entirely, so also the sin and trespa.s.s offerings so frequently demanded, of which G.o.d receives only the blood and the fat and the offerer nothing at all (Ezekiel xliv. 29); of the burnt-offering at least the skin falls to their lot, These perquisites, however, none of them in their definite form demonstrably old, and some of them demonstrably the reverse, may be presumed to have had their a.n.a.logues in the earlier period, so that they cannot be regarded absolutely as augmentation of the priestly income. In Josiah's time the mac,c,oth were among the princ.i.p.al means of support of the priests (2Kings xxiii. 9); doubtless they came for the most part from the minha. Instead of sin and trespa.s.s offerings, which are still unknown to Deuteronomy, there were formerly sin and trespa.s.s dues in the form of money payments to the priests,--payments which cannot, however, have been so regular (2Kings xii. 17). It is as if money payments were in the eye of the law too profane; for atonement there must be shedding of blood.

That the skin of the holocaust, which cannot well be consumed on the altar, should fall to the priest is so natural an arrangement, that one will hardly be disposed to regard it as new, although Ezekiel is silent about a due which was not quite worthless (xliv. 28-31).

So far then as departures from earlier custom can be shown in the sacrificial dues enjoined by the Priestly Code, they must not indeed be treated as purely local differences, but neither are they to be regarded as on the whole showing a serious raising of the tariff. But in the Code the sacrificial dues are only a subordinate part of the income of the priests. In Deuteronomy the priests are entirely thrown upon the sacrifices; they live upon them (xviii. 1) and upon invitations to the sacred banquets (xii.

I2, 18 seq.); if they are not exercising the priestly function they must starve (1Samuel ii. 36). On the other hand, the Aaronidae of the Priestly Code do not need to sacrifice at all, and yet have means of support, for their chief revenue consists of the rich dues which must be paid them from the products of the soil.

V.I.2. The dues falling to the priests according to the law were all originally offerings--the regular offerings which had to be brought on the festivals; and these all originally were for sacred banquets, of which the priests received nothing more than the share which was generally customary. This is true in the first instance of the male firstlings of cattle. As we have seen in the chapter on the sacred feasts, these are sacrifices and sacrificial meals, alike in the Jehovistic legislation and in the Jehovistic narrative of the exodus and of Abel, as were all the offerings brought by private individuals in the olden time. When in Exodus xxii. 29 it is said that they must be given to JEHOVAH, this does not mean that they must be given to THE PRIESTS; no such thing is anywhere said in thc Book of the Covenant. Matters still stand on essentially the same footing in Deuteronomy also: "THOU SHALT SANCTIFY THEM UNTO JEHOVAH; thou shalt not plough with the firstling of the bullock, nor shear the firstling of thy sheep; THOU SHALT EAT IT BEFORE JEHOVAH year by year in the place which He shall choose; and if there be any blemish therein, thou shalt not OFFER IT TO JEHOVAH THY G.o.d" (Deuteronomy xv. 19, 20). To sanctify to Jehovah, to eat before Jehovah, to offer to Jehovah, are here three equivalent ideas. If now, in Numbers xviii. 15 seq., every first birth is a.s.signed without circ.u.mlocution to the priest, and a special paschal offering is appointed in addition, this can only be understood as the last phase in the development, partly because the idea of dues altogether is secondary to that of offerings, and partly because the immense augmentation in the income of the priests points to an increase of the hierocratic power. Ezekiel does not yet reckon the firstlings among the revenues of the clergy (xliv. 28-3I); the praxis of Judaism, on the other hand, since Nehemiah x. 37, is regulated, as usual, in accordance with the norm of the Priestly Code.

The t.i.the also is originally given to G.o.d, and treated just as the other offerings are; that is to say, it is not appropriated by the priests, but eaten by those who bring it in sacred banquets.

It does not occur in the Jehovistic legislation, but Jacob dedicates it (Genesis xxviii. 22) to the G.o.d of Bethel, a place where, although the whole story is a projection out of a later time, it would hardly be in harmony with the conceptions of the narrator to think of the presence of priests. The prophet Amos, who probably represents much the same stage of the cultus as the Jehovist does, says: "Come to Bethel to transgress, to Gilgal to sin still more; and bring every morning your sacrifices, every three days your t.i.thes, and offer with bread pieces of flesh to the flames, and proclaim free offerings aloud, for so ye like, ye children of Israel" (Amos iv. 4 seq.). He ironically recommends them to persevere in the efforts they have hitherto made in honour of G.o.d, and to double them; to offer daily, instead of, as was usual (1Samuel i.), yearly at the chief festival; to pay t.i.thes every three days, instead of, as was the custom, every three years. It is clear that the t.i.the here holds rank with Zebah, Toda, and Nedaba; it is a sacrifice of joy, and a splendid element of the public cultus, no mere due to the priests. Now, in this point also Deuteronomy has left the old custom, on the whole, unchanged. According to xiv. 22 seq. the t.i.the of the produce of the soil, or its equivalent in money, must be brought year by year to the sanctuary, and there consumed before Jehovah that is, as a sacrificial meal; only every third year it is not to be offered in Jerusalem, but is to be given as alms to the people of the locality who have no land, to which category the Levites in particular belong. This last application is an innovation, connected on the one hand with the abolition of the sanctuaries, and on the other with the tendency of the Deuteronomist to utilise festal mirth for humane ends. /1/

1. Connection is, however, possible with some older custom, such as must certainly be a.s.sumed for Amos iv. 4. Comp. Deuteronomy xxvi.

12, "the year of t.i.thing."

But this is a mere trifle compared with what we find in the Priestly Code, where the whole t.i.the has become a mere due to be collected by the Levites (Nehemiah x. 38 [37]) on behalf of the clergy, whose endowment thereby is again very largely increased. Ezekiel is silent on this point also (xliv. 18-31), but as the t.i.the is demanded in Numbers (xviii. 21 seq.), so was it paid from the days of Nehemiah (x. 38 [37] seq.) by the church of the second temple.

Later there was added over and above, so as to meet the divergent requirement of Deuteronomy, the so-called second t.i.the, which usually was consumed at Jerusalem, but in every third year was given to the poor (so Deuteronomy xxvi. 12, LXX), and in the end the t.i.the for the poor was paid separately over and above the first and second (Tobit i. 7, 8; Jos., Ant., iv. 8, 22).

It is absolutely astounding that the t.i.the which in its proper nature should apply only to products of definite measure, such as corn and wine and oil (Deuteronomy xiv. 23), comes to be extended in the Priestly Code to cattle also, so that besides the male firstlings every tenth head of cattle and of sheep must also be paid to the priests. This demand, however, is not yet met with in Numbers xviii., nor even in Nehemiah x. 38, 39, but first occurs as a novel in Lev. xxvii. 32 (1Samuel viii. 17). Whether it ever came into the actual practice of Judaism seems doubtful; in 2Chronicles x.x.xi. 6 the t.i.the of cattle is indeed mentioned, but on the other hand the firstlings are not; in the pre-rabbinical literature no traces of it are discoverable,--especially not in Philo, who knows only of the ordinary t.i.thes due to the Levites, and not of the t.i.thes of cattle due to the priests (De praem.

sacerd. 6).

With the t.i.the of the fruit of the soil the first fruits are at bottom identical; the latter were reduced to definite measure later and through the influence of the former. This is no doubt the reason why in the Jehovistic legislation t.i.the and first fruits are not both demanded, but only a gift of the first and best of corn, wine, and oil, left to the free discretion of the offerer, which is conjoined with the firstling of cattle and sheep (Exodus xxii. 28 [29]. xxiii. 19, x.x.xiv. 26). In a precisely similar way the t.i.tHE of the field stands conjoined with the firstlings of cattle in Deuteronomy (xiv. 22, 23, xv. 19 seq.).

But also the _res.h.i.th_, usually translated first-fruits, occurs in Deuteronomy,--as a payment of corn, wine, oil, and wool to the priests (xviii. 4); a small portion, a basketful, thereof is brought before the altar and dedicated with a significant liturgy (xxvi. 1 seq.). It appears that it is taken from the t.i.the, as might be inferred from xxvi. 12 seq. taken as the continuation of vers. 1-11; in one pa.s.sage, xxvi. 2, the more general _usus loquendi_ reappears, according to which the _res.h.i.th_ means the entire consecrated fruit, which as a whole is consumed by the offerers before Jehovah, and of which the priests receive only a portion. But in the Priestly Code not only is the entire t.i.the demanded as a due of the clergy, the _res.h.i.th_ also is demanded in addition (Numbers xviii. 12), and it is further multiplied, inasmuch as it is demanded from the kneading-trough as well as from the threshing-floor: in every leavening the _halla_ belongs to Jehovah (xv. 20). Nor is this all; to the _res.h.i.th_ (xviii. 12) are added the _bikkurim_ also (xviii. 13), as something distinct. The distinction does not occur elsewhere (Exodus x.x.xiv.

26); prepared fruits alone are invariably spoken of, the yield of the threshing-floor and the wine-press, of which first produce--"the fulness and the overflow "--was to be consecrated.

The FAT of oil, wine, and corn is the main thing in Numbers xviii.

also, and is called _res.h.i.th_ (ver 12) or _terumah_ (ver. 27); but the _bikkurim_ (ver. 13) seem to be a separate thing, and, if this be really the case, must mean those raw fruits which have ripened earliest. Judaism, here once more moulding itself essentially in accordance with the tenor of the Priestly Code, actually drew this distinction; from the publication of the Law through Ezra the community pledged itself to bring up yearly the _bikkurim_ to the house of Jehovah, and to deliver the _res.h.i.th_ into the temple cells (Nehemiah x. 36 [35]). The former was a religious solemnity, a.s.sociated with processions, and the use of the ritual in Deuteronomy xxvi.; the latter was rather a simple tax paid from natural products,--a distinction which perhaps is connected with the different expressions _they shall bring_ (Numbers xviii. 13) and _they shall give_ (xviii. 12). The LXX keeps )APARXH and PRWTOGENNHMATA strictly apart, as also do Philo (De praem. sacerd.

1, 2) and Josephus (Ant., iv. 4, 8, 22).

V.I.3. The amount which at last is required to be given is enormous.

What originally were alternatives are thrown together, what originally was left free and undetermined becomes precisely measured and prescribed. The priests receive all the sin and trespa.s.s offerings, the greater share of the vegetable offerings, the hides of the burnt offerings, the shoulder and breast of meat offerings.

Over and above are the firstlings, to which are added the t.i.thes and first-fruits in a duplicate form, in short, all _kodashim_, which originally were demanded merely as ordinary meat offerings (Deuteronomy xii. 26 = ver. 6, 7, and so on), and were consumed at holy places and by consecrated guests indeed, but not by the priest. And, notwithstanding all this, the clergy are not even asked (as in Ezekiel is the prince, who there receives the dues, xlv. 13 seq.) to defray the cost of public worship; for this there is a poll-tax, which is not indeed enjoined in the body of the Priestly Code, but which from the time of Nehemiah x. 33 [32] was paid at the rate of a third of a shekel, till a novel of the law (Exodus x.x.x. 15) raised it to half a shekel.

V.II.

V.II.1. To the endowment of the clergy in the Priestly Code belong finally the forty-eight cities a.s.signed by Joshua in accordance with the appointment of Moses (Numbers x.x.xv.; Josh. xxi.). The tribes gave them up freely; the smaller giving few and the larger more (Numbers x.x.xv. 8). The Aaronidae and the three families of the Levites cast lots about them in four divisions; the sons of Aaron get thirteen cities in Judah, the Levites ten in Ephraim-Mana.s.seh, thirteen in Galilee, and twelve in the territory eastward of Jordan. It is not merely the right to inhabit, but, in spite of all apologetic rationalism, the right of absolute possession that they receive (Josh. xxi. 12), inclusive of a portion of land two thousand ells square (square in the strictly literal sense; Numbers x.x.xv. 5), which serves as public common.

The physical impracticability of such an arrangement has been conclusively shown, after Gramberg, by Graf (Merx, Archiv, i.

p. 83). The 4 x 12 or the subst.i.tuted 13+10+13+12 cities, of which in spite of Numbers x.x.xv. 8 for the most part four belong to each of the twelve tribes, are already sufficient to suggest a suspicion of artificial construction; but the regulation that a rectangular territory of two thousand ells square should be measured off as pasture for the Levites around each city (which at the same time is itself regarded only as a point; Numbers x.x.xv.

4) might, to speak with Graf, be very well carried out perhaps in a South Russian steppe or in newly founded townships in the western States of America, but not in a mountainous country like Palestine, where territory that can be thus geometrically portioned off does not exist, and where it is by no means left to arbitrary legal enactments to determine what pieces of ground are adapted for pasturage and what for tillage and gardening; there, too, the cities were already in existence, the land was already under cultivation, as the Israelites slowly conquered it in the course of centuries. Besides, from the time of Joshua there is not a historical trace of the existence of the Levitical cities.

Quite a number of them were in the days of the judges and down to the early monarchy still in the hands of the Canaanites,-- Gibeon, Shechem, Gezer, Taanach; some perhaps may even have so continued permanently. Those on the other hand which pa.s.sed into the possession of the Israelites at no time belonged to the Levites. Shechem, Hebron, Ramoth, were the capital cities of Ephraim, Judah, and Gilead; and Gibeon, Gezer, Heshbon were in like manner important but by no means ecclesiastical towns. In the Deuteronomic period the Levites were scattered throughout Judah in such a manner that each locality had its own Levites or Levite; nowhere did they live separated from the rest of the world in compact ma.s.ses together, for they made their living by sacrificing for others, and without a community they could not exercise their calling. Some indeed possessed land and heritage; such were at an earlier period the Silonic family at Gibeath-Phineas, Amaziah at Bethel, and Abiathar at Anathoth, and at a later period Jeremiah, also at Anathoth. But Anathoth (for example) was not on that account a priestly city in the sense of Joshua xxi.; Jeremiah had his holding there as a citizen and not as a priest, and he shared not with the priests but with the people (x.x.xvii. 12). As a tribe Levi was distinguished from the other tribes precisely by holding no land, and its members joined themselves to the settled citizens and peasants, for the most part as dependent inmates (Deuteronomy x. 9, xviii. 1).

Even after the exile, indeed, matters were not different in this respect. "Ab excidio templi prioris sublatum est Levitis jus suburbiorum," says R. Nachman (B. Sotah, 48b), and he is borne out by the silence of Nehemiah x. The execution of the law was probably postponed to the days of the Messiah; it was not in truth within the power of man, and cannot be seriously demanded in the Priestiy Code itself, which contemplates a purely ideal Israel, with ideal boundaries, and leaves the sober reality so far out of sight that on archaeological grounds it never once so much as mentions Jerusalem, the historical capital of the priests.

The circ.u.mstance that these towns lay _in partibus infiidelium_ seems to make them unavailable as a means of fixing the antiquity of the Priestly Code. It is possible with Bleek to explain the transcendence of history as Mosaicity; such a view is not to be argued against. But it is also possible with Noldeke to insist that an invention so bold cannot possibly be imputed to the spirit of the exilic and post-exilic time, which in everything is only anxiously concerned to cleave to what is old and to restore it; and such a contention deserves and admits of refutation.

It is not the case that the Jews had any profound respect for their ancient history; rather they condemned the whole earlier development, and allowed only the Mosaic time along with its Davidic reflex to stand; in other words, not history but the ideal. The theocratic ideal was from the exile onwards the centre of all thought and effort, and it annihilated the sense for objective truth, all regard and interest for the actual facts as they had been handed down. It is well known that there never have been more audacious history-makers than the Rabbins. But Chronicles affords evidence sufficient that this evil propensity goes back to a very early time, its root the dominating influence of the Law, being the root of Judaism itself. Judaism is just the right soil for such an artificial growth as the forty-eight priestly and Levitical cities. It would hardly have occurred to an author living in the monarchical period, when the continuity of the older history was still unbroken, to look so completely away from all the conditions of the then existing reality; had he done so, he would have produced upon his contemporaries the impression merely that he had scarcely all his wits about him. But after the exile had annihilated the ancient Israel, and violently and completely broken the old connection with the ancient conditions, there was nothing to hinder from planting and part.i.tioning the _tabula rasa_ in thought at pleasure, just as geographers are wont to do with their map as long as the countries are unknown.

But, of course, no fancy is pure fancy; every imagination has underlying it some elements of reality by which it can be laid hold of, even should these only be certain prevailing notions of a particular period. It is clear, if a proper territory is a.s.signed to the clergy, that the notion of the clerical tribe which already had begun to strike root in Deuteronomy has here grown and gathered strength to such a degree that even the last and differentiating distinction is abolished which separates the actual tribes from the Levites, viz. communal independence and the degree of concentration which expresses itself in separate settlements. For when we read, notwithstanding, in the Priestly Code that Aaron and Levi are to have no lot nor inheritance in Israel (Numbers xviii. 20, 23), this is merely a form of speech taken over from Deuteronomy and at the same time an involuntary concession to fact; what would the forty-eight cities have been, had they actually existed, if not a lot, a territorial possession, and that too a comparatively large one? The general basis which serves as starting-point for the historical fiction being thus far recognisable, we are able also to gain a closer view of its concrete material. The priestly and Levitical cities stand in close connection with the so-called cities of refuge. These are also appointed in Deuteronomy (xix.), although not enumerated by name (for Deuteronomy iv. 41-43 cannot be regarded as genuine).

Originally the altars were asylums (Exodus xxi. 14; 1Kings ii.

28), some in a higher degree than others (Exodus xxi. 13). In order not to abolish the asylums also along with the altars, the Deuteronomic legislator desired that certain holy places should continue as places of refuge, primarily three for Judah, to which, when the territory of the kingdom extended, three others were to be afterwards added. The Priestly Code adopts the arrangement, and specifies three definite cities on this side and three on the other side of Jordan (Numbers x.x.xv.; Joshua xx.), four of which are demonstrably famous old seats of worship,--all the three western ones, and Ramoth, that is, Mizpah, of the eastern ones (Genesis x.x.xi.; Judges xi. 11). But as all these asylums are at the same time priestly and Levitical cities, it is an obvious conjecture that these also in like manner arose out of old sanctuaries. We need not suppose that there is more in this than an echo of the general recollection that there were once in Israel many holy places and residences of priesthoods; it is by no means necessary to a.s.sert that each of the towns enumerated in Joshua xxi. had actually been an ancient sanctuary. In many cases, however, this also admits of being shown, /1/ although some of the